Washington Report, December 1986, Page 20b

"Seeing the Light" is a new feature in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Readers are invited to send in their own accounts of a personal experience or experiences that cut through the mythology and misinformation that underlies "conventional wisdom" about the Middle East for most Americans, and enabled the reader to suddenly see the Middle East, its people, its culture and its problems in a whole new light. You don't have to be an ambassador, congressman or famous author to participate. The nature of the revelation, not to whom it happened, is the story we are seeking.

Seeing the Light

By George R. Thompson

Newspaper editors think they know it all. At least, I did—until I met my first Palestinian.

I met him in 1954. His name was Farouk. I've forgotten his last name. That's really not as important as were his words and the tale he told.:

"You are an editor (I was at the time) of a historic (150-year old) American daily newspaper. What do you know of the Palestinians? I mean, really know?"

That question was followed by a long pause. The answer was, of course, not one helluva lot.

Like many Americans in media, I thought I was reasonably well-educated, informed, and aware—unlike many Americans who were inclined to ignore the fact that the US was indeed surrounded by other countries. There was, also indeed, a whole world out there about which we (and, damn-it-all, I) knew nothing.

And he was asking about the Palestinians?

There I stood, bathed in abysmal ignorance, mind racing, searching for a suitable reply, until I took refuge behind the newsman's shield:

"Tell me more."

He did:

"You wonder why Palestinians are concerned about the Israelis. You wonder why I and countless other Arabs are concerned that the Israelis have shed the cloak of captive for captor. Let me ask you some questions:"

"Who flies over, drops bombs on, attacks, takes, and occupies whose land?"

"Where are the refugees from?"

"Who are among the largest groups of refugees in the world?"

"Why isn't something being done to correct the situation?"

Another long pause, and he continued:

"The answers are: Israel, Palestine, the Palestinians, and 'because some of my best friends are Jews."'

The next day was spent in the library, where I learned a few things.

He was right, and so many of us in the media—to say nothing of my compatriot Americans—were wrong, and continue to be so.

It is now 1986. Thirty-two years have passed since that conversation. They have been years filled with "up-close-and-personal" experiences with Palestinians and Israelis in which I indeed have learned more.

Let me share but one of a kaleidoscope filled with memories of how much I finally did learn:

It took place on the roof of the venerable American Colony Hotel on a hilltop in Jerusalem long before the '67 war. A Palestinian waiter paused to look out over the no-man's-land cutting a swath of desolation between Jordan and Israel.

The tears on his cheeks glistened in the moonlight.

"Is there anything wrong? Can I help you?"

"No thank you. I come up here every night at dusk when the lights go on over there. Do you see those lights there? There, on the side of the mountain? Count down three from the top. That's my house. I can see it. When the wind is right I imagine I can smell my mother's cooking from the kitchen.

"I can see it. I can smell it. But I can't touch it.

"The Israelis came one day with a note. 'Watch the mukhtar's (mayor's) house at six tonight,' it said. 'If you don't leave by six tomorrow night, your house is next.'

"At six that night, the mukhtar's house disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a big explosion. We left the next day."

I've been learning and "seeing the light" ever since. For most of us, it's been under a bushel for far too long.

George R. Thompson, retired U.S. Information Agency Foreign Service Officer, is a television talk-show host, author, and syndicated columnist now living in Melbourne Village, Florida.